Mirai

Mirai no Mirai

Gateway | Gateway

For Kun (voiced by Kamishiraishi Moka), a carefree four-year-old boy, the birth of his little sister upends his perfectly arranged world. No longer his parents’ centre of attention, Kun refuses to accept his newborn sibling and attempts to chart his own course in the world. So begins Mamoru Hosoda’s (The Wolf Children) ever-adorable anime entry, populated by a whimsically varied cast of characters: a prince (Yoshihara Mitsuo), Mirai’s deceased grandpa (Yakusho Koji) and even a future version of himself (Haru Kuroki).

Suffused equally with the casual wonder of childhood and a distinctly adult melancholy (thus recalling Isao Takahata’s masterful, bittersweet Only Yesterday), Hosoda’s film leaps and bounds through time. Sense memories alternate with whimsical flights of fancy; a garden suspended between a playroom and dining room becomes an arena of magical possibility. The film’s most memorable passage plunges Kun into the cavernous geometry of a bustling train station and observes the improbable butterfly effect of a single existence—just how much a single life contains. Unabashedly goofy, frequently heartwarming and oft-enchanting, this is a child’s adventure of the mind, brought to life with gorgeous animation of the highest order.